The doctrinal approach to planning and conducting campaigns is flawed for the simple fact that war is fundamentally a human endeavour—and humans are unpredictable.

Our present conceptual frameworks for planning and conducting military campaigns in contemporary political warfare are flawed

Political warfare was defined during the Cold War by United States diplomat George Kennan as:

Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert.^[1]

Today, rapid advancement of globalisation, technology and speed of global communication has moved the concept of political warfare into something more complex than ever. According to Christopher Chivvis, contemporary political warfare is conflict that ‘aims directly and exclusively at political systems and the broader policies in which they exist’.^[2] In 2018, the RAND Corporation cited several definitions for contemporary political warfare, carrying a spectrum of conflict possibilities.^[3] From these definitions, analysts could assume that conflict is no longer compartmentalised, offering significant increases in complexity for Western military campaign planners. In the contemporary contested and technologically advanced environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult for planners to identify a successful intersection between applying operational art and the demands of political war to attain desired objectives. For the purposes of this essay, contemporary political warfare will be defined as ‘an arena of conflict that is short of conventional war’. This essay will use an Australian campaign planning lens to consider its adaptability to the demands of contemporary political warfare.

This essay will contend that the existing framework in planning and conducting military campaigns is flawed in its adaptability to apply operational art to the demands of contemporary political warfare. This framework is not adapted to combat threats posed by belligerents operating a mature and effective systems-thinking approach to political warfare. Additionally, it is not designed to identify and plan against the character of contemporary political warfare.

To support this argument, this essay will discuss a system-thinking approach to political warfare, and then demonstrate in three key areas where Australia’s current doctrinal framework is flawed in adapting to this style of warfare. First, it will argue that the planning framework is inadequate against a significantly reduced warning time for conflict. Second, it will demonstrate that the dogmatic approach of focusing on centres of gravity (COG) incorrectly builds perceptions that destroying critical factors will achieve desired outcomes. Third, the lack of an effective Whole of Government (WoG) approach in Australia’s planning framework is inadequate to combat a mature and effective systems-thinking approach to political warfare. Furthermore, Australia’s military planning framework is unable to identify and plan against some characteristics of political warfare, such as covert tactics and economic coercion, and has an inability to plan against terrorism and insurgencies that lack physical and institutional boundaries.

SYSTEMS-THINKING APPROACH TO POLITICAL WARFARE

A definition of systems-thinking is articulated by Ross Arnold and Jon Wade as:

Systems-thinking is a set of synergistic analytic skills used to improve the capability … predict behaviours … devising modifications … to produce desired effects. These skills work together as a system.^[4]

Today, there is a growing consensus that potential belligerent states, acting against the West, have adapted to a mature and integrated system of politics that saturate all levels of war to create a systems-thinking approach to contemporary warfare.^[5] Seemingly, this is not a new concept, as Clausewitz asserted the phenomenon of war consisted of a paradoxical trinity of the people, the government and the army.^[6] What is different now though, is that this system-thinking approach to warfare permeates every level of conflict, and is not held at the strategic level as Clausewitz envisaged. The challenge for Australia’s planning and conducting of military campaigns is to plan operations to combat systems-thinking adversaries at the tactical and operational levels, as well as the strategic. Trent Scott’s position is that Australia’s planning against contemporary political warfare is even more complex than this, arguing that Western militaries will also need to have rapid network planning and decision-making systems to keep up with an adversary’s systems-thinking approach to warfare.^[7]

Professor Michael Evans and Jeffery Engstrom argue that China has adopted a systems-thinking approach to political warfare and is doing so by rapidly investing resources in all levels of conflict to focus on ‘system destruction’ of the Western rules-based order.^[8],^[9] In order to disrupt liberal democracy, Evans and Engstrom present compelling arguments that China [and Russia] are heavily developing technologies in areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cloud connectivity to automate the battlefield at the tactical and operational levels.^[10],^[11] These developments are focused on regime-led political warfare to disrupt Western communication systems, economic prospects and social beliefs. For all liberal democratic countries, such as Australia, a technology driven, systems-thinking approach to political warfare presents significant integration challenges that Australia’s planning frameworks are not yet adapted to combat.

The first issue encountered by Australia’s current planning framework in combatting a technology driven, systems-thinking approach to warfare is warning time. Australia’s own Defence Strategic Update of 2020 warns that future conflict is likely to have little or no warning time for belligerents to carry out acts of conflict.^[12] Australia’s current planning doctrine outlines five steps, with 21 sub-steps.^[13] Even when not under pressure, it is impossible to conceive these five steps let alone 21 sub-steps should an adversary’s machine-controlled system make a decision that will present an immediate risk to Australia. While this may sound farfetched at first, Brendan Taylor argues that the increasing military activities in the   Taiwan Strait have increased the risk of miscalculation, which may result in war due to the machine-assisted sensor and weapon technology with which all actors in the region are equipped.^[14] Should tensions in this flashpoint escalate, Australia may be targeted by Chinese long-range missiles as a proxy to the United States, where such missiles would take minutes to reach Australia.^[15],^[16] While the current planning system in Australia is cyclic in nature, and has options to revisit or pass steps, no human-led planning activity could match the decision speeds of machine-controlled systems. In this scenario, Australia would be attacked before military campaign planning even commenced.

The second issue encountered by Australia’s current planning framework in combating a systems-thinking approach to political warfare is identifying COG. A significant theme in Australia’s procedural framework for planning military campaigns is to derive and analyse an enemy’s COG.^[17] This doctrinal approach to planning forces the planner to focus on the physics of war in seeking COGs that are critical factors allowing the enemy to commit to and sustain conflict. Meanwhile, an effective systems-thinking approach to any activity is about balancing processes within a system, specifically seeking and reinforcing areas that may cause collapse.^[18] Thus, for a planning doctrinal approach to identify areas that may cause collapse [COGs], that a system-thinking approach is designed to continually compensate for, appears counter-intuitive. In 2014, Lawrence Freedman articulated that seeking to attack COG assumes that ‘interconnected and interdependent systems are incapable of adaption and regeneration’,^[19] which is clearly an incorrect assumption. As an example, removing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 did not cause the destruction of the terrorist group. The leader was replaced, and the organisation was, arguably, transformed into something more robust and durable.^[20] Another example can be found in the Vietnam War where, arguably, one COG that the United States focused on was to damage the will of the people to continue the fight.^[21] History and hindsight is a good arbitrator to prove this approach was flawed. Freedman argues that, in political warfare, there are no COGs.^[22] Despite Clausewitz basing many of his warfighting concepts on COG, today this concept is no longer relevant. Effective political warfare is more aligned with a systems-thinking approach to warfare, where defeating an operational COG is unlikely to defeat strategic objectives and moral centres.^[23]

The third issue encountered by Australia’s current planning framework to combat a systems-thinking approach to political warfare is its lack of an effective WoG planning approach. Ofer Fridman states this problem that the West is now facing, is born from a ‘consistent failure in their [Western powers] ability to read messages coming from Moscow [and Beijing]’.^[24]  Viewed through an Australian military planning lens, this problem is due to the lack of foresight to ‘know one’s enemy’^[25] in order to implement an effective WoG approach to combat contemporary, regime-led political warfare threats. A robust WoG approach to counter systems-thinking belligerents is essential. The concept of operational art should, in theory, provide the flexibility to counter any actions with hostile intentions to Australia’s national interest. Stoker and Whiteside, among others, argue that a grand strategy will enable a flexible, WoG approach to counter such threats as political warfare.^[26] Yet on review of Australian strategic doctrinal direction, operational art and campaign planning at the military strategic level have a linear and overt focus on military force, military power and looking to combat a credible threat.^[27] There appears to be no consideration to combat possible coercion of Australia’s population via social media platforms, or economic coercion, as just two examples of political warfare that do not involve overt military power.

In an Australian context, Military Strategic Commitment (MSC) are tasked with strategic planning, and linking the highest levels of Defence and Government. MSC are, however, using tactically focused military doctrine to guide strategic-level decision making. This forces the organisation to use a linear, military-focused planning process that is fundamentally flawed in adapting to political warfare due to its lack of WoG connectivity. Emile Simpson argues that these lessons should have been learnt by Western militaries due to firsthand experiences in Afghanistan. Simpson argues that the Western forces [predominately the United States], have consistently blurred the actions of their enemies, and always opted for a military planned approach despite the threat. She argues this flawed planning construct has had dire consequences for America’s handling of contemporary conflicts.^[28] To thoroughly adapt the Australian military planning and conduct of campaigns to the demands of contemporary political warfare, strategic planning authorities such as MSC must plan collaboratively with other government agencies at all levels of planning and remove interdepartmental friction should it occur. A grand strategic planning authority with a military representative, rather than military doctrine defining the planning process, is perhaps more appropriate. This would allow an effective WoG strategic planning approach to non-military threats to Australia’s national interest.

THE CHARACTER OF POLITICAL WARFARE

Conflict that is short of conventional war often involves significant levels of covert tactics that, due to their character, can go undetected for some time.  Christopher Chivvis details a spectrum of covert activities as part of political warfare,that have been occurring against Western countries for some time. Chivvis enunciates that these activities are often via social media and cyber platforms, focused on influencing populations and deliberately avoiding military and other government agencies to remain covert.^[29] Chivvis further articulates that these covert cyber activities, while difficult to measure, ‘almost certainly had some effect on elections in France, the United States and the Netherlands’.^[30] This then, is cause for concern for Western countries in protecting their national interests and liberal democracy. While a significant part of Australia’s planning framework is to ‘review the situation and scope the threat’,^[31] it is all but impossible to assess this threat if it is successful at remaining covert, or at the very least, remains unaddressed as an act of conflict. While intelligence planners will make a series of assumptions when lacking a complete intelligence picture, Australia’s planning framework provides no scope to look for unknown threats, covert operations or ‘black swan’ events.^[32] Doctrinally, the Australian planning framework commences at ‘define the operational environment by researching all significant characteristics within defined geographical confines’.^[33] Thus, without a defined threat, covert activities will remain largely undetected in this planning process.

Political warfare encompasses a spectrum of activities including economic coercion, but Australia’s planning framework fails to account for this as a threat to its national interests. The First and Second World Wars gave credibility to the use of economic coercion during warfare. Today, trade sanctions are often used to apply pressure on targeted countries to meet national objectives, predominately to protect national security. As an example, in the early 2000s Fiji experienced significant internal unrest, leading to severalcoup d’états. Australia opted to apply a level of economic coercion [trade sanctions] to regain stability and security within Fiji. Australia saw this as an important step in securing the region. The results varyingly failed, with Fiji reinstating a ‘Look North’ policy and turning to China to fill the gap the economic losses imposed by Australia.^[34] From a planning and conducting campaign lens to protect Australian interests, there appeared to be no planning or consideration of the second order of effect these trade sanctions ultimately had.

This issue parallels with Australia’s ineffective WoG approach and ineffective (or perhaps non-existent) strategic planning approach to non-military threats to Australia’s national interests. Had a strategic, WoG planning process been implemented at the time Fiji experienced internal unrest, a different outcome may have been reached that did not include trade sanctions. Moving forward, China’s Belt and Road Initiative is seen as economic coercion that is likely to be a threat to Australia’s national interests.^[35] As experienced in the World Wars, economic coercion can have a debilitating effect on targeted countries. It is a significant underestimation that Australia’s planning framework does not include a commencement point when economic coercion is used by, or against, Australia to assess the first or second order of effects of economic coercion. Should this be implemented in the planning framework, shaping or deterrence activities may be identified as the best course of action to limit effects of economic coercion, which are two strategic concepts articulated in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update.

Terrorism and insurgencies are not new character aspects of political warfare, nor are they uncommon. Typically, terrorism and insurgencies do not adhere to physical or institutional boundaries that Western military campaigns operate under in a liberal rules-based order construct. This misalignment between adhering to physical or institutional boundaries creates another flaw in the adaptability of Australia’s planning framework. In his book, ‘The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism’, David Rapoport articulates that terrorist groups are typically much swifter and agile in changing the character of their warfighting techniques to successfully challenge stronger states.^[36] Examples of their success include the departure of United States forces from Lebanon following terrorist suicide attacks on United States naval vessels,^[37] and the departure of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989.^[38] While controversial, the most recent United States departure from Afghanistan may well be added to this list. Martin and Weinberg argue that terrorism and mass political violence are increasingly evident in contemporary political conflicts.^[39] Due to the characteristics of this style of political warfare, this essay posits that these non-state actors have no fighting doctrine or recurring modus operandi to enable military planners to predict adversarial behaviour.

A belligerent that has no set physical or institutional boundaries in its approach to political warfare, the objectives and critical factors that it operates within would be difficult to identify. A recent Perry Group paper identified that a lack of an adversary’s institutional boundaries may result in individuals acting independently, which may include corruption at the diplomatic level or intellectual property/cyber theft for personal or private sector gain.^[40] In these situations, each independent act would have its own centre of gravity and critical factors and would not, necessarily, aid in the overall political objective. Despite this, Australian planning doctrine still directs a linear and prescribed analysis of threatening actors’ doctrine, tactics techniques and procedures (TTPs) or reoccurring modus operandi. While all steps within operational design elements of Australia’s planning framework demand the flexible, creative and critical thinking processes,^[41] when faced with terrorism or insurgent groups with limited physical or institutional boundaries in which they operate, this flexible, creative and critical thinking methodology in Australia’s planning and conducting campaign framework is not enough. The doctrinal approach to Australia planning framework calls for planners to make assumptions in order to pre-empt an enemy’s future action. These assumptions are then critical to the future planning and conducting of campaign operations to defeat the adversary. This doctrinal approach to planning and conducting campaigns is flawed for the simple fact that war is fundamentally a human endeavour, and humans are unpredictable. In an arena where there are no physical or institutional boundaries, a miscalculation of assumptions is highly possible, which would result in the inability to shape military operation plans according to the threat posed. To combat the character aspect of terrorism and insurgency in contemporary political warfare, the misalignment of boundaries between adhering to physical and institutional boundaries would need to be addressed to allow Australia’s planning and conducting of campaigns be adaptable to this character aspect of warfare.

CONCLUSION

Western militaries are facing adversaries adopting contemporary political warfare concepts to challenge and weaken the liberal rules-based order at unprecedented levels. This has resulted in Western militaries facing increasingly complex, contested and technologically advanced environments in which to operate. It is essential that Western militaries adapt the planning and conducting operational art to the demands of political war to attain desired national objectives.  However, as this essay has demonstrated, the existing framework for planning and conducting military campaigns, seen through an Australian lens, is fundamentally flawed and cannot adapt to the demands of contemporary political warfare.

As articulated in this essay, belligerents that are challenging Western liberal rules-based order have adopted a regime-led, systems-thinking approach to political warfare. The systems-thinking concept is designed to identify and reinforce areas that may cause collapse. Consequently, belligerents like China have rapidly advanced their technology to achieve an automated battlefield utilising machine-controlled systems. This systems-thinking approach to political warfare has significantly reduced warning time for potential conflict and has diluted or removed the critical factors [COG] needed to commence and sustain conflict. This approach, combined with Australia’s ineffective WoG collaboration at all levels of planning and conducting operations, equates to Australia’s planning frameworks being grossly inadequate to combat a mature and effective systems-thinking approach to political warfare. Furthermore, this essay concludes that Australia’s military planning framework is unable to identify and plan against such character traits of political warfare as covert tactics, economic coercion, and the belligerents’ lack of physical and institutional boundaries.

To address these shortcomings of adaptability to the demands of contemporary political warfare, Australia’s framework to plan and conduct operations would need to shift its focus. At every level of the planning framework, attention would need to be directed to collaborate with other government agencies to address the misalignment that is occurring between liberal rules-based order versus a regime-led system, and the character of contemporary political warfare. This shift, however, will be most challenging to achieve.

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Footnotes

¹ Linda Robinson et al, 'Modern Political Warfare. Current Practices and Possible Responses', RAND Corporation, 2018, 13.

² Christopher S. Chivvis, 'Hybrid War: Russian Contemporary Political Warfare', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 73, no. 5 (August 21, 2017): 317.

³ Robinson et al, 'Modern Political Warfare. Current Practices and Possible Responses' 321–22.

⁴ Ross Arnold and Jon Wade, 'A Definition of Systems Thinking: A Systems Approach', Procedia Computer Science 44 (2015): 677.

⁵ Trent Scott, 'The Lost Operational Art: Invigorating Campaigning into the Australian Defence Force', Land Warfare Studies Centre, February 2011, 19–25.

⁶ Brian Cole, 'Clausewitz’s Wondrous Yet Paradoxical Trinity. The Nature of War as a Complex Adaptive System', JPME Today, no. JFQ 96 (Quarter 2020): 42.

⁷ Scott, 'The Lost Operational Art: Invigorating Campaigning into the Australian Defence Force', 16–17.

⁸ Professor Michael Evans, 'Operational Art: Conceptual Origins and Contemporary Application' (Australian Defence College, September 27, 21AD).

⁹ Jeffrey Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare (RAND Corporation, 2018), 86–89.

¹⁰ Evans, 'Operational Art: Conceptual Origins and Contemporary Application'.

¹¹ Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare, 120–36.

¹² Australia and Department of Defence, 2020 Defence Strategic Update, 2020, 15.

¹³ Department of Defence, 'Plans Series: Joint Military Appreciation Process, Australian Defence Force Procedures 5.0.1 (Defence Publishing Service, August 15, 2019).

¹⁴ Brendan Taylor, 'Flashpoints Korea-Taiwan', (Australian Defence College, March 11, 2021), 147–58.

¹⁵ Taylor, 147.

¹⁶ Tyrone Clarke, 'China Possesses Ability to "strike Australia" with Long-Range Missiles, Bombers', Lowy Institute/SkyNews.com.au,August 2021.

¹⁷ Department of Defence, 'Plans Series: Joint Military Appreciation Process, Australian Defence Force Procedures 5.0.1.,, 3-2–8.

¹⁸ Logan Derrick, '5 Advantages of Systems Thinking and How to Make Full Use of It', Project Planning, 2021.

¹⁹ Lawrence Freedman, 'Stop Looking for the Center of Gravity', War on the Rocks, June 2014, 2.

²⁰ Freedman, 'Stop Looking for the Center of Gravity', 3.

²¹ Mark Thompson, 'The General Who Lost Vietnam', Battlelane. Military Intelligence for the Rest of Us, September 30, 2011, 36–39.

²² Freedman, 'Stop Looking for the Center of Gravity', 2.

²³ Joseph Strange and Richard Iron, 'Center of Gravity. What Clausewitz Really Meant', National Defense University, no. 35 (2004): 26.

²⁴ Ofer Fridman, 'On the "Gerasimov Doctrine": Why the West Fails to Beat Russia to the Punch', Prism 8, no. 2 (2019): 101.

²⁵ Michail Ploumis, 'Strategy, Sun Tzu and the Battle of Marathon', Defence Studies 21, 2021, no. 1 (December 20, 2020): 107–10.

²⁶ Donald Stoker and Craig Whiteside, 'Blurred Lines. Gray-Zone Conflict and Hybrid War—Two Failures of American Strategic Thinking', Naval War College Review 73, no. 1 (2020): 12–18.

²⁷ Department of Defence, 'Operations Series: Campaigns and Operations, Australian Defence Doctrine Publication 3.0, Edition 2 AL 1', (Defence Publishing Service, March 4, 2013), 1-3–15.

²⁸ Stoker and Whiteside, 'Blurred Lines. Gray-Zone Conflict and Hybrid War—Two Failures of American Strategic Thinking', 14.

²⁹ Chivvis, 'Hybrid War: Russian Contemporary Political Warfare', 316–19.

³⁰ Chivvis, 'Hybrid War: Russian Contemporary Political Warfare', 216.

³¹ Department of Defence, 1A-1–2.

³² Frank Hoffman, 'Black Swans and Pink Flamingos: Five Principles for Force Design', Texas National Security Review, August 19, 2015, 10.

³³ Department of Defence, 1A-1.

³⁴ Sandra Tarte, 'Fiji’s ‘Look North’ Strategy and the Role of China', 2021, 16–18.

³⁵ Peter Cai, 'Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative', Lowy Institute, March 2017, 4–10.

³⁶ David Rapoport, 'The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism: International Dimensions and Consequences', University of California, January 2013, 46–73.

³⁷ Susanne Martin and Leonard B. Weinberg, 'Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare', Terrorism and Political Violence 28, no. 2 (July 29, 2014): 239–40.

³⁸ Martin and Weinberg, 'Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare', 239.

³⁹ Martin and Weinberg, 'Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare', 236–45.

⁴⁰ Thomas Dobbs et al, 'Grey Zone. The Perry Group Paper, (The Forge, n.d.).

⁴¹ Department of Defence, 'Plans Series: Joint Military Appreciation Process, Australian Defence Force Procedures 5.0.1,' 2–1.